Witness Marks
by A.M. Fearns
Summary: A house embedded with evil does not forget. It does not forgive. It does not relinquish its hold on a family, no matter how many years have passed. The Crain family are cursed and always will be, regardless of the generation. The house will call to any member it can, and Steven soon finds himself in the same position his own Father was left in many, many years ago.
1. Nora Sees a Ghost

_Someone I hold very close to my heart once told me that time doesn't run in a single straight line. The moments we spend on this earth don't fall from one event to the other like dominoes. Our moments fall around us like snow. Like confetti. We are surrounded by everything and everyone we've ever met, ever loved, constantly. We are never truly alone._ _ **Especially**_ _when we're alone._

 _I try to keep those words around me whenever I feel my mind drifting back to Hill House and my time there. It is still a physical embodiment for grief and loss for my family. And yes, fear too. Our moments there did not fall as gracefully as my younger sister wished. They slid down around us in thick, cancerous, matted sin. It imbedded itself. It lingers, and it will continue to linger long after I am gone. Long after all of my siblings are gone._

 _But when I think of the house; of its walls and its grounds, I don't feel the same resentment I did when I first put pen to paper all those years ago. I feel acceptance. I accept it for what it once was and what it is. I accept it for what my Mother and Father tried to make it, and I accept it for what my sister Nell would have wanted to be._

 _And I hope, against everything that has happened, that it will accept me as a survivor in the end-_

"Dad?"

Steve Crain lifted his eyes from the monitor of his laptop and blinked tiredly. His fingers relaxed from their position, poised over the keys to tap out his story. Standing in the doorway was his daughter, backpack over one shoulder and a mug in her hand. Stretching out his back, he yawned sharply and took off his glasses.

"You okay Nora?"

Eleanor Olivia Crain nodded her head, and let her backpack thud to the ground with a simple shrug of her shoulder. She wandered over to his desk and set the blue mug on the stained coaster and dropped in to the wooden chair at his side.

"I brought you a coffee. It got quiet in here for longer than twenty minutes so I knew it was needed."

Steve huffed out a tired laugh and nodded to her in thanks, bringing the coffee to his lips to sip at it.

"How was school?"  
Nora shrugged her shoulders in the nonchalant way that only teenagers could. Steve stared at his daughter over the curve of his mug, a brow raised. Nora held his gaze for a second before she sighed and her shoulders dropped.  
"It was just pointless. Mr Arnold made me stay during lunch again because I didn't do the chemistry work."  
"And you're complaining about that?" He put the lid on his pen and dropped it back in to the coffee pot he used as a pencil holder. "You didn't do the homework. What else were you expecting to happen?"  
"I know Dad. I know." Nora rested her elbow on the table and perched her chin on her shut fist. "It's just bull."

Steve smiled. It was a smile he found only his first born could really bring about. She reminded him so much of Leigh that it was uncanny sometimes. She had her eyes and her nose and her penchant for being sarcastic to the wrong people. But the one thing that was different was her hair. It was not her Mother's blonde. Her hair was as dark and as curled as any other Crain girl. He was surprised it hadn't skipped a generation entirely.

He reached across and squeezed her hand.  
"Well you're done for the holidays now. You don't have to bother about Mr Arnold again until January." He paused, realising what his wife would be imploring him to do if she was present.  
"But you're doing your homework."  
"Dad—"  
"I mean it." 

Picking at her chipped nail polish, Nora's eyes settled on her Father's laptop screen.  
"Are you nearly finished?"  
With another strained sigh, Steve picked up his glasses and scanned through the last paragraph he had written. He took another mouthful of coffee.  
"Nearly. Tying up final threads."  
"Can I read some of it?"  
He felt his eyes shut for a for a few seconds, that same guilt twisted in his stomach and crept its way to his heart.  
"No, Nora." He mumbled as he pressed the save icon. "Not yet."

His daughter furrowed her brow and leant forward in her chair.  
"I've read some of the other ones. Dad you said that now I'm older I could read all of them. I've just finished Alcatraz and if you're writing a sequel to it I could start Hill House and by the time I've finished that you might have published this one—"  
"No." Steve shut his laptop off with finality and his daughter leant back in her chair with a defeated drop of her shoulders. Steve slid his laptop in to its case and ran a hand over his forehead.

"No, Nora. Not now. Not yet."  
"Dad it's just a book. It won't scare me. None of your stories scare me anymore. They haven't for years."

"Go and pack. Now you're finished with school we need to make our way to your Aunt Shirl's." It was a blunt deflection, and he regretted it as soon as it left his lips. There was no response from his daughter, and he could tell that she was staring at the side of his head indignantly.  
Steve just focused on packing his writing things in to his leather satchel. "This'll be fun. All your cousins will be there and we'll spend Christmas together as a big family."  
"Dad." Nora stood, picking her school bag up from the floor. The disappointment was still drifting in her eyes, but she didn't let it overflow.

"I'm not Em. You don't have to tell me how magical this is going to be. It's going to be just as crowded as it is every year. Aunt Shirley will find something to argue about with Aunt Theo, Mom'll have too much wine. Like every year. And you'll sit in the corner with Uncle Luke looking pissed off and promising to never do Christmas as one family ever again."

Steve straightened, tucking his glasses in to his jumper. Yesterday his wife had packed their other kids in to her car and had headed to his sisters to get things sorted. Now Steve would be packing the small mountain of presents for his siblings, his nieces and nephews and his own kids in to the back of the car and make the drive with his eldest. If he wasn't careful that drive would be in teenage, hormonal silence.

So instead, he walked over and pressed a kiss to his daughter's forehead.  
"Don't be a smartass, Eleanor."  
A wisp of a smile twitched at her lips as she looked up at him.  
"I'm right though. Aren't I? You and Uncle Luke will make your way through another bottle of champagne."  
Steve tried to look down at her with a disapproving expression, but it soon crumbled in to an affectionate laugh. He tapped her nose.

"Go. Pack."

With a smile, she turned and ran back towards the stairs. Steve listened to the footsteps on the landing above him. It was only when he heard the clunk of a door shutting that he allowed himself to exhale.

The walls of their house groaned in complaint to the bitter cold outside. If he listened hard enough he would hear himself creaking from time to time. Walking back to his desk, he picked up his coffee.

The mug had been a Father's Day gift from years ago. When Nora had barely been three. The words 'World's Okay-est Dad' had faded from overuse. It had been something Leigh had initially laughed at when he had opened it. She had shifted their toddler on her knee and told him that Nora had allegedly picked it out herself. He tapped his thumb against the china in thought. Tired grey eyes drifted down to the picture frames on his desk. Most were of his children, one was of his wife on their wedding day. In the centre of the row there was a picture of his sisters. All in the bridesmaid dresses Leigh had chosen. He had plucked it from their wedding album because the three of them looked so happy. Shirley had a slightly tipsy smile on her face. Even Theodora looked mildly glad to be there. But the main reason he had set it down on his desk was for his youngest sister. Nellie. Barely 19 at the time of his wedding, grinning in the middle with all the happiness and joy in the world.

Steve stopped tapping his mug. With one hand, he reached out and took a smaller frame from the corner of his desk. A faded, old photograph of his parents. He let his thumb brush against the glass above his Mother's face.  
"I know you'd probably tell me she's old enough." He mumbled, perching on the edge of his desk. The old oak creaked beneath him.

"Hell, she's older than I was when we were there. But I can't. I can't. I can't shatter her image of our family. Of the two of you. Of Nellie. She's so happy she's named after her that if I let her know what happened I'm frightened that she'll jump to the same conclusions I did—"  
" _Dad! Michael left his toothbrush!"_  
The innocent shout from upstairs stopped him in his tracks. He was talking to himself again. It was said that was the first sign of madness. [The irony was not lost on him.] Without moving his eyes from the image of his parents, he shouted back.  
"Well put it in your bag! You can tell your brother he's an idiot when you see him." _  
_

" _Cool!"_

Silence once more. Steve listened to the grandfather clock in the corner of his study ticking away. An anchor; if anything, when he needed moments to think. He looked at his Father's smiling eyes, his lips pressed against Olivia's cheek. They were young in the photo, clearly in the first year or so of their relationship.  
"I understand now, Dad. I do."

Nora jumped down the last step on the stairs, duffle bag in one hand and backpack in the other. She had thought that she was too old for the excitement of the holiday season by now. But the more the thought of being finished with school sunk in, the more she could feel excitement bursting like little fireworks beneath her skin. Dropping her bags, she sat down on the bottom step and pulled on her boots. Christmas meant the beauty of gorging herself on her Aunt Shirley's cooking. It meant watching as her younger siblings and her cousins threw snowballs at one another and the smug bliss of them all finally being beaten by their Aunt Theo. But what she looked forward to the most, was sitting with her Uncle Luke by the fire and just talking. It may have had something to do with the fact that he let her share his whiskey and coke, but since he had left their spare room and started out on his own, she had missed their time together.

Finishing her laces, she stood and took her winters coat from the peg near the door. As she was buttoning it up, she heard her Father locking up his study down the hall.  
"Ready?" Steve asked as he lifted the handle of his suitcase.  
"Yeah." She said with a nod, stuffing her phone in to her pocket.

Doing a once over of all the windows, Steve shrugged on his thick coat.  
"Right." He snatched his car keys from the pot.  
"Let's rock and roll, kiddo."  
"Dad." Nora stopped in her tracks, watching her Father step out in to the cold. "Dad don't say that."  
"Why not?"  
"Just don't." She muttered as she felt the cold bite at her cheeks. "You're nearly 50."  
"I'm 44." Came the tutted response as he locked the front door. "And I'll have you know when I was your age I was the coolest kid this side of Nevada." He was doing it deliberately now, finger guns and all. Nora rolled her eyes to the high heavens and opened the passenger door.  
"Dad. Stop. I'm begging you."

For a few minutes they sat in silence as the car defrosted. The heater whirred as the mist on the windscreen slowly faded away to clarity. It was moments like these that he used to treasure with his Father. Just the two of them in the car making their way in the unknown. With his hands motionless on the wheel, he broke their comfortable silence.

"Any parties I need to know about?"

Nora looked up from her text message, blinking at the question's suddenness.  
"I don't think so. Maybe at New Years. I don't know whether Maddie is having another party this year."  
He nodded, finally turning the engine on. As he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the drive he spoke in a strained voice.  
"Run it past Mom. Should be okay. And if you're going to steal beer from the cooler just ask and I'll get you a crate."

He glanced over in time to catch her guilty expression. He just shook his head with a knowing smile.

A couple of miles and a few badly sung Beatles songs later, Nora turned her attention away from the rain hammering against the car windows and hugged a knee to her chest.

"Dad?"  
Steve, glasses on, kept his eyes on the road ahead. The wipers flicked back and forth against the spray.  
"Yeah?"  
"Why can't I read it?"  
For a moment the only noise between them was the ticking of the cars indicator as Steve changed lanes.

"Nora, I wrote the first half of that book when I was the same age as you. My English teacher asked us to write an essay on our most vivid memories. Some trash about sophisticated writing. What I handed in at the end of term was barely a chapter of what I eventually published. He failed me. Only fail I ever got at high school. He said he had asked for reflection and I had written fiction."

Nora listened. Occasionally a passing streetlight cast her face in a bright white glow.

"But it _is_ fiction. All of your books are fiction, Dad." She frowned, the radio fuzzed in and out of clarity in the rain.

"Ghost stories. You said they were ghost stories."  
"They are." Steve nodded, tapping the wheel with one finger to steady himself. "The Queen Mary, Alcatraz. All ghost stories that people have given me and I've elaborated on."

His daughter was looking concerningly close to causing an argument. Her leg dropped back in to the foot-well and she nudged her head against the glass of the window.

"Then what's the big deal?"  
"I wrote a lot of things in that book that I can never take back." Perhaps he had said it too sharply. Too quickly. Because his daughter turned her face back to the rain and bit at the skin on her lip.

His hands tightened on the wheel and he squinted through the rain at the break lights of the car in front, forcing himself through his guilt.

"That book is based on my own experiences. And the experiences of your grandparents, all your Aunts and your Uncle. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I was some stupid 23 year old kid. I wrote a lot of things about that house that…" He trailed off. The windscreen wipers whirred mechanically. Shaking his head he reached over to turn the radio up a little. A Bing Crosby Christmas song.

Setting his hand back on the wheel, he slowed in the traffic with a sigh.

"One day, Eleanor." He promised as his daughter turned away from him in her seat and chased rain drops down the glass with her finger.

The old timey Christmas song drifted through the car, and Steve let himself focus on the lyrics and the memories stitched within their melodies. His mind flitted back to the treasured Christmases with his family before Hill House. Being lifted up by his Father to put the final touches on the tree. And then to the disjointed Christmases in the custody of Aunt Janet, the hollowness he felt. The false smiles he put on for the twins.

When Nora Craine saw the figure standing at the edge of the road she thought nothing of it. The rain drops on the window made it so hard to get a good view that it simply looked like somen0e waiting to cross the road. If she had a clear view, she would have seen the woman's neck was bent at an unnatural angle. She would have seen that she was in a night gown and nothing more, and that the woman's eyes were fixed on her and her alone. But Nora didn't see any of this, she just listened to her Father's soft humming and the rain pattering against the roof and let her eyes slide shut.


	2. Crain

_A/N: I can't apologise enough for the delay in updating. My final year at University is taking up most, if not all of my free time. However, I've completed a lot of modules now so I should be more on top of things when it comes to updating._

 _Please leave reviews with any criticism/feedback. I love to hear from you all and I can't stress enough how much it helps me!_

By the time Steve had had pulled up in front of Shirley's house, his daughter had fallen asleep. It had been a drive of malcontent silence and unwelcome Christmas songs. But it was over now and that was all that mattered.

Shutting off the engine, the car rippled to silence. Now that they were still, fat snowflakes were beginning to fall on the windscreen. He looked across at Nora, asleep with her face pressed against the glass. In simpler times, all it would take would be for him to go around to the passenger side of the car, unbuckle her seat belt, scoop her into his arms and carry her inside. But she was no longer a ten year old who could fit in to his arms, and he often found himself wishing that she still was.

Instead, her reached across and shook her gently by the arm.

"Up and at 'em, kiddo. We're here."

With a soft inhale, she lifted her head, neck stiff from her position. He smiled thinly at her. She didn't return it. Taking her backpack from the foot-well, she got out of the car without a second word.

By the time he had grabbed a few suitcases and made his way to the front door, his sister was waiting for him. Theodora, whiskey glass in hand and wearing a rather juxtaposing Christmas jumper. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"You look like shit."

"I missed you too." Steve muttered, setting the suitcases down at his side. He looked at her expectantly.

"You gonna let me in?"

Pushing off from the door frame, she sipped at her drink and moved out of the way and back in to the house.

The inside of Shirley's house was warm. The smell of cooking was drifting to his nose from the kitchen and Christmas decorations donned the walls. Stamping his feet to dislodge snow, Steve shut the door behind him. A creak of a floorboard was all it took to make his smile return.

Leigh. God he had missed her. It had only been two days, but ever since they had made amends he had never wanted to stray far from her side. The steps he took to close the distance between the were hurried, and he accepted her hug willingly.

"Hey." She said, in the happy tone that had been absent from his life for so long.

"Hey." He breathed, ducking to press his mouth to hers.

With a laugh against his lips, she pushed his hands off her waist and pulled away. "Jesus, you're freezing! Get off!"

Half tempted to put his hands on her back under her shirt like the college kids they once were, Steve was only stopped by his son. Barely ten, walking over to him. Stepping back from his wife, he managed a genuine smile.

"Hey bud."

Hugh Crain, whom everyone referred to as Hughie, beamed up at him. At least one of his children wasn't unhappy with him. Pulling his son in to a sideways hug, Steve carried on walking down the hallway.

"How is everything?"

"Auntie Shirl has told everyone to get out of her kitchen and Auntie Theo has already had an argument with her so that's why she's sulking."

He had such a blunt way with words that it would always make him smile. An outlook on the world that Steve would seldom see in anyone else he knew.

"Did you see your sister, bud?"

"She's with Uncle Luke." Hughie looked up at him through a dark fringe, a lopsided smile on his face.

Of course she was. It made sense that she was. Whenever there was a family meetup the first thing Nora would ask was if Luke would be there., and if he was she rarely moved from his side.

Sticking his head through the kitchen doorway, he saw Shirley staring down at numerous pots on the hob. Kevin, at the chopping board, was already shaking his head in silent warning. But Steve, to be frank, had enjoyed annoying his younger sister since he was four years old.

"Hey Shirl. So nice to see you."

She didn't even look up from the cooker. "Unless you're here to roast potatoes you need to leave."

Steve twisted his head slightly with an inhale. "Christmas spirit, Shirl. I can feel it all around."

"You'll feel something else in a minute."

Leigh, sensing that there was a conflict in the making, had pulled him by the elbow and lead him down the hallway to the living room. Theo was sitting on the sofa in the corner, one arm around Trish—who he concluded was the culprit for making his sister wear a Christmas jumper seeing as she was sporting her own equally hideous one. And there, on the other sofa, was his little brother.

Luke had done well for himself. He had been clean now for close to a decade and a half. His clothes were no longer shabby sweats and he had bagged an animation job sometime after his third clean year. Sure enough, Nora was sitting at his side.

Luke stood, smiled his crooked smile and hugged Steve so tightly it had nearly knocked the wind out of him. He kept forgetting that he was going to the gym regularly.

"Hey Luke."

"Hey Stevie."

And that was that. He was settled, warm and surrounded by his family. Though his sisters and their attitudes were still lost on him. Steve found a spot on the armchair near the fire-place and Leigh settled on its padded arm, passing him a beer he was all too thankful for.

"How has it been here?" He asked, taking his first long sought after sip.

"Like watching eighty cat fights." Luke said simply, half smiling at the glare he received from Theo across the room. A brief tap of the knee from Trish was all it took to stop the dirty look.

"And then this one came bombing over at one hundred miles an hour and started telling me about her Art lessons."

Leigh nodded at his side with a smile, one hand on Steve's knee. "Best class you have, isn't it darling?"

Nora nodded, still hugging her backpack to her chest. Steve tried to meet her eyes.

She didn't let him.

Dinner proved to be less eventful than she had initially thought. Nora had spent the first half of it trying and failing to kick her brother in the shins under the table whenever he grinned over at her in the smug way that always got under her skin. Uncle Kevin was explaining a story to the rest of her family that was clearly absolutely hilarious for reasons Nora simply didn't want to understand.

As she had hoped, her Aunt Shirley's food did not disappoint. When the roast potato dish had been passed to her, she had piled a small mountain on to her plate, gaining her an unimpressed look from her Mother across the table. By the time she had turned five she had concluded that she would spend the rest of her life eating nothing but her Aunt's roast potatoes if she could. To Nora Crain, they were worth their weight in gold.

Every now and then, Theo would look over at her and smile. A smile that she knew to be genuine because it actually reached her eyes. It seldom did with anyone that wasn't Trish or one of Nora's cousins. Theo was still half listening to whatever nonsense Kevin was spouting as she ate, but she still found the time to mouth the words 'are you okay' to her. Knife and fork still in hand, Nora nodded her head. Her Aunt raised a brow in doubt but pressed on with her food anyway.

She looked over at her parents briefly. Her mother was talking to her father quietly, her brows pinched in concern. It didn't take a genius to know that the topic was about her. When her Dad glanced up at her, she looked away, sipping at her coke. Directly opposite her, Hughie was watching her intently. He leant over.

"Are you grounded?" He asked, setting his fork down so he could reach for his own drink. "Because you're doing the face you do whenever you're grounded."

"Haven't you got anything better to do than to push your face into someone else's business?"

For a ten-year-old, her brother was too snarky for her liking. She had often heard her Mother saying to her friends that she was certain it was because of all the video games he played. But in Nora's opinion it was simply because he was a turd. And she had no shame in mentally referring to him in such a way.

Hughie leant back in his chair with another one of his smug smiles, and Nora realised that she had broken one of her most important rules. She had risen up to him, and as soon as someone like her little brother got a rise out of you, he had essentially won.

"Someone's sulking."

"Well at least my voice doesn't break whenever I talk." It had been said quickly, half directed in to her drink as the rest of their family carried on chatting around them. His eyes narrowed, and she had seen him turn his head and draw a breath to call for their Father, but their Uncle, who she hadn't known was listening, had already leant forward.

"Hey." Luke's deep voice stopped her brother in his tracks. Forearms on the table, Luke leant closer to his brother's kids and shook his head. "Stop messing around. Because if your Dad yells at you we're the ones that have to deal with him being miserable when you're both in bed."

Hughie slumped back in his seat and took his cutlery up again. When his unimpressed gaze locked with hers, Nora managed an overly sweet smile, though as soon as she had done so she had been prodded in the ribs by her Uncle.

"Cut it out."

Turning back to his food, he cut in to the turkey his sister had spent far too long slaving over. This would be their only Christmas dinner, as when Christmas did roll around in the coming days, everything would be too hectic. Luke never minded. They were the Crain's after all. Normalcy just wasn't a factor of anything.

"What's your Dad done now?" He asked, fork scraping against the plate as he pierced some more meat. With yet another half-eaten roast potato on her own fork, Nora glanced at her Father once again, lost in conversation with his wife. "He isn't letting me read his book. The first one. The Hill House one."

Her Uncle had suddenly become very still. For a moment she was waiting for him to roll his eyes or huff out a laugh. But there was no such display of emotion. He was chewing his food steadily and nodding to himself just as slowly.

"Nora," He began, finishing his mouthful. "If you write something like your Dad did, and you take it to a publishers and get it copied hundreds and hundreds of times you can't take any of it back."

Even the potatoes weren't keeping her together anymore. Nora had settled her hands in her lap. Her phone buzzed in her jean pocket, but she knew that as soon as her Father caught her with her head bowed staring at another group chat it'd just give him another thing to tell her off about. Her argument was feeble, and she knew it was.

"But he's writing a follow up."

Luke shook his head, bumping shoulders with his niece once. Anything to tell her that though what he was saying was harsh, he was still a supportive figure in the situation. "Okay. New way of seeing things. What do we do when we make a mistake when we draw?"

 _We_. Already he was making her smile return again. In her head, the two people that understood her frustrations the most were her Art teacher and her Uncle Luke. Tucking a dark curl behind her ear she, smiled. Properly.

"We rub it out."

"Yeah. Rub out the mistake and draw it again. See, what your Dad has done is allow thousands and thousands of copies of that drawing with the mistake in it to be in galleries all over the world. He can't erase it, not every single one. So he'll write a follow up. To change that mistake. Because just as many people who read the first one will read the second one. Get it?"

"I think so."

With a sniff, Luke finished his glass of water. "Art analogies. Only way to get through to you. I'll pass that on to your Dad."

As always, the sleeping arrangements were haphazard and last minute. Theo and Trish had claimed the larger spare room long before her parents had even arrived. Since she had moved out of the annex on Shirley's land, her Aunt had opened it out to a renter. An older woman by the name of Mrs Blanche Creed, who seemed to do nothing but catch the bus to her crochet meetings, go to church and spoil her six cats. With her cousin Jayden away at college, her Mother and Father were sleeping in his room instead. Which of course, left Nora uncomfortably sleeping on one of the sofas. Hughie was on the other sofa and Luke, all too used to sleeping rough, was on the floor in a sleeping bag.

After one too many drinks after dinner, Kevin had had to steer his wife back upstairs, and judging by the look in her Mother's eye, Leigh would be spending most of the night with her face over a toilet. Wine wasn't her friend, she always said. But she drank it anyway.

Both her Uncle and her brother were snoring. If that wasn't irritating enough, they had synchronised perfectly so that whenever Luke exhaled silently, Hughie inhaled noisily in a constant loop. The risk of freezing to death while sleeping in the car was becoming all too tempting. The white light of her phone was keeping her awake as she scrolled through endless posts from friends and classmates. A myriad of Christmas tree photos, family selfies and the more than frequent slutty Santa dresses from some of the more 'confident' girls in her classes.

After some time even the world of social media was beginning to bore her. Thankfully, her younger brother had turned in his sleep and his snoring had ceased. Though the same couldn't be said for her Uncle. With a jagged swallow, Nora realised that her throat was dry. Her tongue was no longer wet in her mouth and she could feel a tickle beginning at her tonsils. Of course. Of course she would need a drink of water at this time of night.

Careful to not accidentally stand on her Uncle, Nora swung her legs off the side of the sofa and sat upright. She could just see the silhouette of the Christmas tree sitting in the corner of the room, surrounded in darkness. The coffee table adjacent to it was still littered with the cards her Father and Uncles had been attempting to play after dinner. Standing, she stepped over Luke's legs and circled around the sofa that her brother was fast asleep on. Seeing as she had spent nearly every Christmas in her life at her aunt's, the route to the kitchen was one she knew all too well. Straight down the hallway, first door on the left opposite the second staircase. As her feet made their way across the vinyl flooring, she found herself wishing she had worn socks to bed.

Despite the central heating, the December chill was making each step pinch at her bare feet. Quickening her pace to save them from any more grief, Nora hid a yawn behind the back of her hand. The kitchen still smelt of cooking, and the low lights from under the island kitchen top in the centre barely lit her way when she flicked them on. Vinyl floor had changed to marble, which only meant her feet were met with a more intense chill that washed its way up and down her legs.

Walking over to the correct drawer, she tiptoed to get a glass. As she ran the tap, she looked out across her Aunt's property at the annex that was partially tucked away by the trees. A single light was on in the bedroom. Nora felt her eyebrows twitch in a frown. Last time she had checked her phone it had been coming up to 3:00 in the morning. Why was a woman as elderly as Mrs Creed awake at such a time? The curtains were shut, but she could still see the orange light ebbing out from the gaps in the fabric. The light flitted briefly, as if someone had walked past it's source.

The sudden shock of ice cold water spilling over her wrist startled her so much that she had nearly dropped her glass. She had been so distracted that it had overflown. Shutting off the tap with a muttered curse, she emptied some of the glass, dried her hand on the back of her joggers and took a good few sips.

It was Christmas, she told herself. Why would Mrs Creed not have people visiting for the holidays? And yet, in Nora's experience, the senior woman was one of the people who found the tradition of drunken festivities and gift giving abhorrent. She had learnt as such when she had been six and she had been invited over for cookies with her cousin Allie. Mrs Creed had asked if she was familiar with the true meaning of Christmas, and Nora had remembered the haggard, uncomfortably large wooden cross that hung on the bare grey wall in the living room.

Would a woman who seldom left her house apart from on Sundays who kept her company with cats and, Nora assumed, had a very sheltered and opinionated world view, have visitors?

She doubted it. The woman had probably over-run on her own midnight mass, she thought. Or had woken up too late to begin with. Finishing her fill of the water, she let the rest splash down the sink. Setting the glass down on the side, she turned and started to make her way back across the kitchen, turning off the light behind her as she left.

The Christmas tree was on.

Red and green lights turning on and off in synchronised tandem, cast colourful shadows across the room and the sleeping faces of her Uncle and brother. Nora remained in place, her hand still resting over the light switch behind her in the doorway. Perhaps they worked on a timer like the lights outside. Perhaps Luke had knocked the switch on the floor turning in his sleep.

Movement in the corner of her eye dragged her attention away. The staircase directly opposite the kitchen doorway was more lit up than it had been before. A light from the floor below. It made sense now. Her Aunt clearly couldn't sleep and had gone downstairs to do some work. She had turned the tree lights on to light her way.

Kicking herself, her hand fell from the light switch and she took her first step on to the hallway. The chill was more intense now, numbing the soles of her feet. As a child she had never journeyed further than the second step. Her Mother had wrapped an arm around her and told her that there was an element of respect that was needed for the people Shirley's clients sent in to her care. That it was no place for a six year old to play hide and seek in. But this was different, surely. She was fifteen. She knew more about what her Aunt did now than she ever did when she had first discovered the staircase.

Her hand came to rest on the bannister though she did not take the step. There was certainly a light.  
"Auntie Shirl?" She kept her voice moderately quiet. She looked back over her shoulder in to the living room. Hughie turned over in his sleep, one hand hanging down off the sofas edge. Dangerously close to their Uncle's nose.

Her foot met with the first step down to the mortuary. She suddenly realised how tight she was gripping the banister. The walls in the living room were still flickering due to the tree. Red. Green. Red. Green. Nora straightened, cleared her throat and took the second step. And then the third. By the time she had turned on the landing and made her way down the final set of stairs, the lights from the tree were out of sight. Only the yellow, warm light from the strips on the ceiling showed her her way to the mortuary door.  
"Auntie Shirl?" Louder this time. "Sorry if I'm interrupting. I can't sleep. Can we talk? I fell out with Dad..."

It was colder down here than it was anywhere else in the house. Nora wasn't sure if she shuddered because of the change in temperature or because she had realised why it was needed. To preserve what was needed to be preserved.

She knocked. There was no response. Though whenever she had visited with her Mother on weekends she had seen her Aunt go down to work with headphones in more than once. Bracing herself to be snapped at by Shirley, Nora pushed the mortuary door open.

Two slabs, both pristine and smelling strongly of disinfectant lay before her. Thankfully, they were empty. There was a stillness here like no other. It's varnished vinyl floor and white, chilled counters and drawers. It was a room without any life in its walls, which in reason, was useful seeing as there was seldom any life within them. It was a room that existed to hold non-existent people.

She was unsure what she would have done if she had walked in on her Aunt with her hands inside someone's digestive system. Probably shut the door and hurry back upstairs where she was supposed to be. However, Shirley was no-where in the room.

As she was questioning whether there was another room downstairs that she had missed, her phone buzzed in her jogger pockets. Still leaning against the door to keep it open, Nora fished around for her phone and looked down at her lock screen. Blocking the photograph she had of her and her friends was messenger notification. Sliding her thumb across she instantly rolled her eyes. Paul Nelson. A boy in her homeroom who she just about tolerated.

" _Someone's up late. Or Early.'_ And, good lord, two winky face emojis. Muttering to herself, Nora sighed and lowered her phone from her eyes.

Writing. Large and arching, jumping out at her from the mortuary wall. The lettering was red and runny and spanned from one side of the wall to the other.

Crain.

Her phone clattered to the floor. Sweeping down to snatch it up again, she turned. Slipped on the polished vinyl and hit her head on the doorway making white flash before her eyes on impact. If anything it just spurred on her fight or flight as she sprinted up the stairs without looking back.

Upstairs in his nephews bed, Steven Crain sat bolt upright, heart pounding in his chest. With his hand pressed to the side of his head.


	3. Hypnic Jerk

The Child Protection officer in in the corner of the room had been chain smoking for the past thirty minutes. Every time a cigarette had burnt its way down to his fingertips, he would tut, mash it in the overflowing ashtray and hack out a cough.

From there, without fail, he would take an agonizingly long sip from his coffee cup and turn the page in his newspaper. At this point, Steve was certain that no-one on the surface of the Earth took as long to read as this man did. Surely he wasn't reading and was instead staring vacantly at the print until something made sense. Other than the rustle of pages and the occasional loud slurp, the only other sound in the room was the clock ticking on the wall. Five chairs had been laid out for the children in the hallway, though only three were sitting in them.

Some ten minutes after they had first been herded in there, Nellie and Luke had taken to sitting on the floor. Luke had reluctantly accepted the tin of crayons that had been thrust at him by the officer, and was sitting cross legged sorting through the colours. Nellie, though sitting next to him, was more occupied with braiding her barbie's hair.

Theodora, situating herself as far away from her brothers and sisters as she was allowed to be, was sitting sideways in her chair with a book in her lap. Much preferring to focus on a world of fiction as opposed to the morbid reality that they had been living for these past weeks.

Shirley on the other hand, was looking down at her lap, occasionally sniffing. At the far end of the room, the officer lit another cigarette. Deciding on something, Steve leant down and lifting his backpack in to his lap. Rummaging through it, he ripped a few pages out of an old notepad and stood from his chair. It creaked. The officer lifted his head, flicking ash.

Meeting his eyes, as always, was a trial and a half. But Steve just smiled hesitantly. "I'm just seeing my brother."  
A grunt of affirmation. A newspaper page was turned. And more coffee was slurped.

Sitting down opposite his brother and sister, Steve slid the pages over.

"No use having crayons if you don't have something to draw on, huh, my man?"

Luke looked up, blinking owlishly through his wonky, large glasses. He smiled, and Steve saw the gaps between his front teeth. One was an adult tooth, the other a baby tooth, which meant the difference in size was fairly noticeable.

"Is Daddy done yet?"

Steve glanced behind him at the door their Father had walked through some time ago. The more he stared at it, the more he expected it to suddenly swing open and for his Father to walk through. A smile on his face and a promise to get that McDonald's dinner he had mentioned when they had been on their way there. But it remained shut.

Hands on his knees as he crossed his legs, Steve looked back at the twins. A brave smile, just for them.  
"Dad'll be out soon, Luke. I promise." He tapped at the paper with his finger. "Why don't you draw something for him? By the time you've finished he might be done and then we can go home."  
There was a small scoff from Theo behind him on the chairs, but Steve ignored her. As time progressed and the older children dealt with what had happened in their own way, Steve was becoming increasingly better at ignoring his first two sisters. It would become a trait he would regret in later life.

Luke plucked a black crayon from the tin. It had been snapped in half by whichever miserable child had been sitting in their place before, but his little hands were still managing to hold it as best he could. For a few seconds the little boy stared down at the blank page his brother had given him and when he did speak he did so quietly.

"Can I draw Mommy? Would Daddy like that?"

At Luke's side, Nellie turned her head and looked at her twin in silent question.

The smile Steve had been forcing was beginning to fade. When it came to it, he was thirteen years old. He would incessantly ask his Dad to treat him like an adult and up until recently Hugh had been doing just that. He let him help when they had been flipping houses, and more often than not when he spoke to him he spoke to him as straight as he would any other adult.

But losing a parent so suddenly would hit any adult hard. Especially when the adult in question was still a little boy. His stomach twisted, and his throat swelled, and when he replied his voice was slightly higher, but he pushed on regardless.

In the time he was taking to compose himself, Luke and Nell had been having a silent conversation with expressions alone. It was something Steve had grown used to by the time they had turned two.  
"Yeah, Luke." He nodded, suddenly clearing his throat. "Draw Mom. He'd like that a lot."

When Steve next looked down at his legs, he had dug his nails in to his skin without realising. Little crescent moons were embedded in to his skin from his fingernails. Now that he had noticed them, they were beginning to sting.

The light above the officer's head had begun to flicker. As the electricity struggled to catch, it buzzed angrily. Smoke still furling from his cigarette, the man stared up at the light as if it was a troublesome wasp. Luke had started to outline a stick woman in a dress on his page, drawing out the waves of her hair. Her red crayoned smile was large, stretching from one side of her face to the other. Too wide to be normal.

Steve was beginning to wonder if it would come to a point where he would forget his Mother's face. As abhorrent as it seemed, surely there would be a time when he would wake up one day and forget. Forget what colour her eyes were, or the curve of her face. Even the gentle voice that had told him stories before he went to sleep when he was smaller.

The light buzzed and flickered once again. There was a rustle as the officer carelessly tossed the newspaper aside and stood on his chair to inspect the faulty light more closely.

Steve glanced over his shoulder at the door again. It still wasn't open, but if he strained his ears he could distantly hear his Father's voice talking seriously in a silent room. Opposite him, Luke was beginning to colour in their Mother's hair, and Nellie was making her doll walk across the floor. Clutching on to whatever childhood innocence they had left.

The light the officer was inspecting crackled off, and the hallway in front of him was plunged into darkness. He was waiting to hear Luke squeak in fear. Ever since his brother had had his run in with the dumbwaiter Luke wasn't good with tight spaces and darkness. But no timid noise came.

"Fuckin' thing." Came the irritated mutter from the man charged with watching over them. There was a tapping noise coming from the dark hallway. Steve could only assume that he was trying to reconnect the bulb.

When the light returned, it was blinding. Twenty times brighter than it had been before and Steve had to shield his eyes to stop it hurting.

Nell was standing now. Only she wasn't his little sister. She wasn't the little girl with light in her eyes who would beam up at him and follow him like a loyal puppy. The woman that stood before him was older, her skin was black with mould and rot, and her nightgown was tattered at the edges.

Her neck was broken.

As Steve fell back in shock, she loomed above. Right ear pressed to her shoulder, she could only stare down at him.  
"Nellie?" It was strange, how now his voice sounded lighter. Younger. He had only just noticed.

"Crain."  
"Nell?"  
Speaking through a clenched, wired shut jaw, her words washed over him in deeper tones. The floor beneath him seemed to give way and he felt himself slipping, falling.

" _Crain._ " 

A hypnic jerk, Steve once read, was the sensation of suddenly falling you would feel when your brain was caught somewhere between sleep and reality.

Anything could start it. A muscle twitch, a breath, even shifting your head on your pillow. You could be visited by it your entire life. Most are. There is no bottled remedy to make it go away, because there was nothing specifically _bad_ about it. Your body would shock you awake, you would sit up. Perhaps you would laugh about it to whoever was sleeping beside you. Or maybe you would sigh. And then you would drift off peacefully some time later as if nothing had ever happened. The sensation would fade.

The fear you felt as you fell would not.

Tonight, as it happened, was the first hypnic jerk he had felt in some time. When the courthouse floor below him seemed to crumble to nothing, his conscious mind had woken as if it had had a sharp slap to the face.

His nephew's bedroom was not a place that he was used to waking up in. That likely didn't help matters.

At his side, his wife remained lost to the world. Leigh was one of the deepest sleepers he knew. Even the speed in which he had sat up had not disturbed her. She was facing him on her side, hugging a cushion to her chest as always. More often than not, Steve would be in the cushions place. Having Leigh's head in its rightful place on his chest was fine when they had only just settled for the night. But there would always come a point where he would need to turn away. Stretch out to himself. Sleep.

His heart had stopped jittering like a hummingbird on crack now so at least there was that. Easing himself back down to a lying position, a long sigh drifted from his lungs. The dream was already fogging in his mind. Nell was there. Of course she was. When this time of year rolled around she would always be in his thoughts. But when he did dream of his little sister, he would see the girl he had always known her to be. Not the broken spectre the house had turned her into.

With a soft noise, Leigh shifted her head on her pillow and opened her eyes slightly. Steve brushed some of her hair from her face .

"Did I wake you?"

"You were thinking too loudly."

The discontent mutter as she pressed her face back in to her pillow only made him smile. Already she was drifting off again. He leant down and kissed her on the forehead.

"I love you."

"You too." Came the snippet of the sentence that was intelligible. At some point in the next blurred minute, she had tangled her legs with his and settled her head on his chest. Settling his arms around her, he looked around the dark bedroom with his lips pressed against her hairline.

"Do you think the kids are okay down there?" She asked, slightly more awake now than she had been before.

"Course. Luke is down there with them."

"Luke snores as badly as you do."

A pause as his brain caught up with him. He looked down, and she was half smiling back at him, and god he loved her.

"I do not snore."

"Yes you do."

"Since when?"

"Since we were 20."

Eyes narrowing a little, Steve rested his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "Lies." He muttered.

"You do snore. It's sound like Chewbacca when he's depressed."

He pressed one of his fingers on the spot at her side he knew was ticklish and she squeaked against his chest, hitting his arm.

"I was comfy!"

In a perfect world, when he kissed her in that moment the rest of their night would have gone just as smoothly. But this was Steve's life, after all, and nothing was ever sacred. The loud crash from downstairs was enough to make him sit up again. Any thoughts of sleep were gone now.

Sobbing. A particular sobbing that he recognised as it was the noise he would listen out for fretfully at night when he was a new father. Now, just like then, he was out of bed in record time. The bedroom door was open and he was half-way down the staircase before Leigh had even got out of bed.

Luke was wide awake. He was out of his sleeping bag. Even in the darkness Steve could see the whites of his eyes. He looked up at him in stunned silence. On the sofa, his son was frozen, staring down the hallway with one hand fisted in the blanket around him.

Between the kitchen and the living room, his daughter was slumped against the wall. Crying in laboured, exhausted breaths. Steve's feet had carried him over in seconds, his hands on his shoulders.

"Nora? Nora what is it?"

To say that she was hysterical would have been an understatement. Nora was leaning away from him as if he was anyone else but her Father. Though she was speaking, he couldn't make out all of her words. The sobs got in the way of anything else. He pressed his hands to the side of her face, soaked with hot tears.

"Nora. Nora breathe."

" _Blood!_ There was blood on the wall downstairs!"

"What?" Steve felt his brows pinch. "What were you doing downstairs?"

"I th-thought I heard Auntie Shirl. The lights were on."

Still on his knees, Steve looked up at her with a small shake of his head, Though before he could speak Leigh had rushed over, dressing gown billowing behind her. Unlike Steve she remained standing, smoothing her eldest's hair back. In a quick movement, Nora had suddenly latched on to both of her parents.

"There's someone down there. There has to be. Someone wrote Crain on the wall. Someone has to have done it, Dad, the lights were on." Momentarily, she was silenced by Leigh stroking her hair and holding her to her. A mother's touch, as always, was enough to soothe even the wildest fears.

His eyes fell on the staircase that lead down to the mortuary.

For the first time in a good few years, Nora Crain found herself sitting on her father's lap with tears in her eyes.

Sometime after her parents had run to her side, Shirley had woke from all the noise. What followed was furious string of words between her and a rather numb Steve. Getting to the point where Luke and Theo had to stand between the two of them.

But now, all was relatively quiet. Leigh was sitting on the sofa, letting her son lie with his head in her lap as he drifted to and from a restless sleep. Steve had slumped down in to the same arm chair he had claimed when they arrived earlier. And with a hesitant sense of dependence, Nora had clambered on to his lap. Right now, she didn't care about the fact that they had argued, and by the arms that were wrapped around her, Steve didn't either.

His chin had come to rest on top of her head, and she was staring at the line of stitches on the shoulder of his pyjama shirt. He was pushing the chair back ever so slightly with his legs and the rocking motion was the most soothing thing she had felt for the past half hour.

Luke was walking back and forth from the fireplace to the coffee table. If Nora had known to count she would have noticed that they were seven steps each time. His eyes were vacant, and his hands were shoved in to the pockets of his joggers.

"Dad?" As always after crying, her throat was sore and her nose was running. Steve just hummed in response, and it rumbled through his chest to her ear.

"I'm not lying." She saw her mother look up and meet her husband's eyes, though no words were said between them. She moved her face, looking up slightly. "I'm not. You do believe me, don't you? Dad?"

"Don't rile yourself up, sweetheart." Was his only response.

With a creak of a stair, Kevin was in the hallway again. Shirley soon followed, face still slightly red from shock and frustration. Nora stared at them from her spot, and it appeared that Steve was doing the same. All it took was a shake of Kevin's head for some air leave Steve's lungs in a sigh.

"Nothing?" Luke asked, finally stopping his pacing. Shirley wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her pyjamas.

"The lights were on and the door to the mortuary was wide open. No writing."

Nora sat up immediately, ignoring Steve trying to coax her back down.

"I saw it. It said Crain. The words said Crain."

Leigh shook her head imploringly at her daughter, but Nora didn't listen. She stood up, hands still shaking at her sides. At her slightly raised voice, her brother woke up again, and his head lifted from Leigh's lap.

"I wouldn't lie about this." Her eyes met with each one of her Aunt's and Uncle's in turn. Silently daring them to tell her otherwise. She felt her father stand up behind her, ease an arm around her shoulders and attempt to guide her back down in to a seat. She was having none of it.

"I only went to get some water! The tree lights were on when I came back and the lights downstairs. I'm telling you! Someone wrote Crain on the walls."  
"Nora." Shirley held her hands out in front of her, speaking in the slightly patronising way that always got on Nora's nerves slightly. "Kevin and I went down there. There was nothing on the walls." Her hands dropped to her sides again. She was clearly holding her tongue.  
"And for a start young lady you shouldn't be going down there anyway. What I do down there privately concerns the family of our clients. You shouldn't be rooting around."

"Jesus, Shirl." It was the first thing Steve had said for the past few minutes. Yet as soon as he had uttered the words Nora watched as Luke shut his eyes in dread and tilted his head up to the high heavens. Shirley looked as if she was about to question Steve, but found herself cut short by Luke.  
"It's four in the morning. Everyone's tense, especially Nora. The last thing any of us need is you two going at one another again. I thought you'd have both learnt from last time."

Nora felt herself frown. Her father and her Aunt Shirley had always had a somewhat turbulent relationship at the best of times. When she had asked, Leigh had told her that it was simply because they were both strong and outspoken people. Birds of a feather clash more times than most realise. Over the years, all of their arguments blurred into one for Nora. Yet none stuck out enough in her mind as worthy enough to be simply referred to as 'last time'.

While she had been lost in her head, the room around her had crashed in to an uneasy and unwelcome silence. Her Aunt Theo had been so quiet during this time that Nora had forgotten she was there. Her arms were folded and her eyes were downcast.

"It's pretty obvious what this is." She said finally, and Nora felt her Father's arms tighten around her. Absently, she turned to look up at him. Steve was staring across at his sister with a slow shake of his head.  
"Dad what's-"  
"She just drinks too many energy drinks." He said with a quick shake of his head. "That's all it is. She's got too much buzzing around in there and she dreamt something up. You heard Shirl, there's nothing down there."  
Leigh had sat up on the sofa by then, gently moving her son off her lap so she could stand. Theo was biting the skin around her thumb, staring at her niece with an almost sad look in her eye.

Theodora started to walk over to her, and to Nora's sudden horror she felt her Father pull her away by the wrist. Though his grip on her was barely there, the shock of the sudden movement had taken the air from her lungs.  
"Theo," Shirley began, though she didn't take a step towards her sister. Nora was certain she had never heard her Aunt Shirley speaking so softly, with such a sad, dreading look in her eyes.

Theo sniffed. "What? It'll answer the question won't it? If it is what Steve, once again, is denying to even be possible-"  
"Don't you bring me in to this, Theo, she's my damn daughter-"  
"I haven't felt anything for years." Theo cut her elder brother off before Steve's voice could even rise. "So if something did happen down there, I should know." Two pairs of dark, Crain eyes held one another's gaze. Steve didn't breathe and word and neither did Theo, until she turned and looked at her sister.  
"Right Shirl? I'm right, aren't I?"

Shirley suddenly couldn't meet her eye. But she still nodded and fixed her gaze on the Christmas tree in the corner. On the other side of the room, Luke was staring out in to the night with his forehead pressed against the glass. At his side, one finger was tapping out a beat of seven against his leg. Still leaning in to her father, Nora watched as her aunt gently placed her hand on top of hers.

That was all. Nora was struggling to see why the rest of her family were treating it as if Theo was suggesting to do open heart surgery without anaesthetic. She had been about to voice her question when she noticed how her Aunt's facial expression had changed. Theo's eyebrows had met in the middle, her face the picture of pain. But it wasn't the sort of pain you would scream and writhe from. What Nora saw in her Aunt's eyes was a pain that ebbed from your very core. Theo's hand was gone just as quickly as she had reached out with it and she had soon retreated back to her corner of the wall, holding her hand against her chest as if she had sprained it.

There was a silence in the living room. Nora didn't take her eyes off her Aunt, and her Mother didn't take her eyes off her husband. In the corner, Luke had turned his head ever so slightly from the window, glancing at his siblings reluctantly. It was her brother, still too young to understand what all the fuss was, who broke it.

"Dad?" Hugh was fiddling with the sleeve of his pyjama shirt as he spoke, looking to their Father, as always, for an explanation. When Theodora nodded her head ever so slightly, Nora heard a shaky breath leave Steve's lips. She moved away from him, looking from her Aunt to her Father. Steve was staring at the floor, jaw clenched and his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

She heard Luke swear under his breath, saw Shirley lift her hand to her mouth in her peripheral vision. Hugh stood, crossing the room to stand next to his sister, closer to Steve.

" _Dad?"_


End file.
